


more than merely mortal

by mothwrites



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen, Late Night Conversations, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-10-01 07:24:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10183949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothwrites/pseuds/mothwrites
Summary: "That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal; as time will show.“Hera talks to Isabel, and contemplates Ada.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Should be obvious, but do NOT read if you haven't listened to the S3 finale.  
> I have a lot of feelings about both Isabel and Ada Lovelace.  
> tumblr: patsywxlker

Only Hera will talk to Lovelace now. Oh sure, Eiffel and Minkowski defended her – them – it? – to the others, but since the original shock, they haven’t really said a word. Cursory hellos at breakfast. Guilty glances, looking away before she can really meet their eyes. They can’t look her in the face without thinking of what she is: or what she’s _not._

So she spends a lot of time in her quarters (Isabel’s quarters?), talking to Hera.

“Are you related to the Victorian mathematician and theoretical computer programmer Ada Lovelace, by any chance?” Hera asks.

Isabel stares up at the ceiling balefully, interrupted. “I’m _sorry?_ ”

“Augusta Ada Lovelace,” Hera says primly. “Victorian mathematician. Any relation?”

“Obviously not,” Lovelace replies, slowly, as if she’s talking to a child. “Because _I’m_ not a _human,_ am I? I’m _not_ Isabel Lovelace. No Earth ancestors for me, Victorian or otherwise.”

However, a memory _is_ rearing in her head. Or; not a memory, but some kind of buried information. Ada Lovelace. “It rings a bell,” she says finally, breaking the silence. “Perhaps _she_ was related to her. Isabel.”

“Ada Lovelace was a singularly intelligent person for her era,” Hera continues, oblivious or simply wilfully ignorant to Isabel’s mounting annoyance and her reluctance to be equated to the real, flesh-and-blood and very _dead_ Isabel Lovelace. “A computer programmer before computers had even been _invented._ And she wasn’t shy about it, either. Once she was recorded as saying: _That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal; as time will show._ And it did.”

“Hera,” Lovelace says, through gritted teeth. “That’s lovely. It really is. Score one for historical geniuses. Score two for feminism. What has this got to do with _anything?_ ”

A silence follows her words. Not that it was ever silent on the Hephaestus; it would be better to say that a gentle whirr and a series of clicks and far-off crashes followed her words. There are a few more moments before Hera speaks again.

“I was trying to be comforting,” she says, a strain of faint irritation in her voice. “Let me try again. You were complaining that you didn’t feel human.”

“ _Complaining?”_

“And you’re _not_ human,” Hera continues. “But as a – as _someone_ once told me, not being a human doesn’t mean that you’re not a _person_. You were always a person. You were always a member of this – _our_ – crew. And your brain was always something more than merely mortal, Isabel. So it stands to reason that your physical form should be more than merely mortal too.”

Lovelace refuses to be comforted. She always refuses. It’s not the Captain’s job to be looked after.

But: maybe this once.

“Thank you, Hera,” she says slowly.

Hera hums contentedly. “You’re welcome,” she says. “Us non-humans have to stick together, after all.”

“I suppose…” Isabel says. She stretches out in the space above her bed, mimicking the pose of a sunbather. Her fingers briefly brush the spot on her forehead where the bullet had entered; clean, unbroken skin. Alien skin. “I suppose we do.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [(podfic) more than merely mortal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10212470) by [mothwrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothwrites/pseuds/mothwrites)




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